ComplaintsforBusyKid

• Initial Complaint

  11/02/2023

  Complaint Type:

  Product Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  On 10/31/23 I transferred $200 from my sons spend to get cash. I then initiated two transactions of $100 each from spend to get cash. I have not received the $200 cash in my bank account although I see the transactions were approved and the $200 was debited from his Busy Kid Account. I submitted a request to ******************************* requesting more information. I received a vague response and a request not to cancel my card. Since I still did not receive the requested $200, I became concerned about the approximately $1400 balance between my two childrens accounts. I requested an immediate deposit for all Busy Kid funds into my bank account and an update on status/timelines. I tried to log into my childrens accounts today and found the accounts were closed. I called customer service and was told a refund was under review by a supervisor. I expect money that is deposited into an account to be accessible without multiple follow *** and with better communication from the company. If I do not receive my funds totaling $1412.54 in the next 24 hours, I plan to take legal action.

  Business response

  11/03/2023

  *****,
   
  I wanted to take a moment to apologize for this situation and the poor communication by my team. I've reviewed everything and while the issue is being caused by some restrictions we face within the *** system, this doesn't excuse us from providing you a better explanation or options to get your money faster. 
  
  Within the next few days you'll see $79.40 back in your account, but in six smaller transactions ranging between $4.80 to $24. The rest, as explained, can be sent via check. For a faster return, I can also send to you immediately through PayPal. My team should have made this offer to you as well. 
   
  Please let me know how you would like to see the portion of the funds not already being sent to you and I'll get it done. If PayPal, please provide me your account details. 
   
  Again I'm sorry for the trouble and miscommunication by my team. We have higher standards than what you experienced and I'll make sure we improved from this. You'll also see this message as my response to your BBB complaint. I hope this will resolve that as well.
   
  Sincerely,
  ***************************
  President
  
  

  
  

• Initial Complaint

  09/28/2023

  Complaint Type:

  Billing Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  In 2021 I signed up for BusyKid as an incentive for my daughter. I had nothing but problems getting it set-up. I called but the company never responded. I sent text messages and I was told my subscription was canceled. This past July they charged my account $*****. I never re-authorized them to take money out of my account. I went through my bank and they initially refunded the money to my account. They contacted BusyKid and BusyKid claims they refunded my money, however the money never went back into my account. The bank re-authorized the charge so I paid ***** for an account that was supposed to have been canceled in 2021.

  Business response

  09/29/2023

  ****,

  Again I'm very sorry for the troubles and frustration that this has caused you. I've talked with my team to determine what happened and it's clear that your account was charged for an annual subscription recently by accident. This has been fixed and you deserve a refund. However since you have disputed the charge with your bank and will mostly likely get the money back through them, we can not issue a refund. If by chance your bank doesn't put the money back, we will refund. 

  For now, we need to wait to let your bank work through its process. If you don't see the money back through them, please reach out to me and I'll have my team do so.

  Once again, sorry for the trouble.

  Sincerely,

  ***************************
  President

• Initial Complaint

  08/15/2023

  Complaint Type:

  Service or Repair Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  Busy kid charged my account for $48.00 on 08/14/2023 and I didn't authorize the charge. This is the second time an unauthorized charge happened. I haven't used these cards since we had them. When the first charge happened I reached out to the company and was told they can't find my information and that they are unable to handle these matters and that I had to contact another branch. This last charge when I called, I'm unable to get a hold of anyone and the card phone number on the back of the card is out of service. I would like my money refunded and my accounts closed immediately.

  Business response

  08/16/2023

  Sorry for the trouble and any miscommunication. I believe you have spoken to one of our agents, we have refunded the subscription amount and verified that the account has been closed. You shouldn't have any issues moving forward.

  Sincerely,

  ***************************
  President

• Initial Complaint

  06/07/2023

  Complaint Type:

  Product Issues

  Status:

  Resolved

  More info

  This company took money from my daughter's account without authorization and has not returned the money. She had $147.82 and it just disappeared.

• Initial Complaint

  04/28/2023

  Complaint Type:

  Service or Repair Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  I went to log into my son's busy kid's account to pay his allowance and the account is closed. His money is gone. No explanation whatsoever. They charge you a few to open the account then close it without warning and keep your money!

  Business response

  04/29/2023

  I'm sorry for the trouble but our system makes predictions on stability based upon balance, and if your balance is too low, the account get suspended until a new source is connected or the balance is increased. This is to protect you and your children from fees, and ensure that our system doesn't fail. Please let me know if you would like to continue and I'll get the account live again. At that time you'll need to increase the balance or change the funding source. 
  
  Sorry again for the trouble.
  Sincerely,
  ***************************
  President

• Initial Complaint

  04/09/2023

  Complaint Type:

  Service or Repair Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  I sent a $280 bonus to the card on 3/24. A few days later on 3/27, I decided that I wanted to move the funds back to my funding source to put them in an interest bearing account instead. I also had additional funds in the "Save-Invest" area of the account. In total, I decided to move $350 back to the funding source. Their system only allows moving $100 at a time, so I had to move $100 three times and then $50. All of them were approved on 3/27. What ended up being moved was $30, $20, $5, $2 (total of $57). I emailed the support team to find out where the remaining funds were when they weren't sent over with the rest. I received a few vague answers such as payments only being sent back in the amounts they are sent to the cards. After I couldn't get a clear response on where the remaining money went (not back in my checking, but showing that it left Busy Kid), I decided to call their support. I got a voicemail and left a message for someone to call me. Instead, I got another vague email back telling me I can see the funds on the account credit screen and that the payment made hadn't cleared yet (despite it being "approved" and sent out of the account. It was obvious the rep didn't fully understand the issue. There was only $6.11 showing. After several emails and a call, I found the email for the president of the company on several reviews of the app where people expressed various concerns. I sent an email to him at ******************************* on 4/1 asking for help on finding where my money went. I didn't hear anything back, so I sent a follow up email on 4/5 with no response. At this point, the company has possession of $293 of my money that seems to have disappeared. My request is to have my $293 minus any previous charges that *** be pending deducted back to my funding source, and to close the account.

  Business response

  04/10/2023

  I just had this complaint forwarded to me just a few minutes after responding to an email that was in my junk folder. I have forwarded that email to our VP of Customer Support in order to figure out the issue, get it resolved and communicate with the customer as soon as possible. This will happen today. Sorry for the trouble and delay in any responses from us.

  Sincerley,

  ***************************
  President

• Initial Complaint

  03/19/2023

  Complaint Type:

  Service or Repair Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  I signed up for busy kid childrens credit card in hopes to have the convince of being able to transfer money from my account to this card so they always can have access to money need be. I paid the 48 dollar subscription fee, waited over 2 weeks for the card to come. Then every time i kept trying to load money to my sons card it would say failed . I contacted customer support who told me that it was due to insufficient funds in my account. I could prove to busy kids as this was NOT the case and i did have money. Then busy kids charged me ********************************************************************** money. There has never been a time where i didnt have money. Again i resolved that issue . Third I am trying to put more money on my other sons account and for 4 days it says pending on busy kid card so my son is not able to access the money but busy kid charged my account and it was already taken out . I contacted customer support again where they told me it was pending due to the 10 dollar fee , ( in which i still dont understand ) and would take 2-3 business days.i reached out to customer support again stating how unhappy i am would like a refund and close my account . They closed my account all right , immediately. Leaving me zero access to my account where there is still money on my childs card and i have over *************************************************************************************** out to my account . This is the biggest scam and poorly run business and its directed towards children which makes it even worse. My children were in multiple situations where they were not able to access their money but some how the money was taken from my account so i couldnt access it either . And now i have money in this account and ** completely blocked out . They have a 30 day money back guarantee but with waiting for the card and responses from customer service its impossible to even give the company a chance within the 30 Days so they scam you out of the subscription fee .

  Business response

  03/20/2023

  I'm sorry for the trouble and any misunderstandings or miscommunication with our support team. It appears that the account was opened on Feb. 6 and was working great until a $15 bonus failed due to insufficient funds. When this happens our system switches to manual mode where transactions must be validated with the customers bank. Working on bank time can be frustrating since it can take 1-3 days for validation. Several transactions from that day also failed. Our support team attempted to explain this to the customer. My team will now be contacting the customer to provide a full refund even though the request to cancel came yesterday, several days after the 30 days. If I can help further or provide more details, please let me know.

  Sincerely,

  ***************************
  President

• Initial Complaint

  02/12/2023

  Complaint Type:

  Billing Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  I received a debit card for a child's savings account. They are charging peoples accounts but when you call they say they can't find an account for you.

  Business response

  02/17/2023

  Hello,

   

  Sorry for the trouble and any misunderstandings. In reviewing your conversation with our help team, I don't see where someone told you that there was no account. Did someone call you to say this? If so, can you tell me who you spoke with? In any case, I see that this has been resolved, account closed and money being refunded. If there is more I need to know or anything I can do to help resolve this, please let me know by emailing me at *******************************. 

  Again, sorry for the trouble.

  Sincerely,

  ***************************
  President

  BusyKid

• Initial Complaint

  10/21/2022

  Complaint Type:

  Service or Repair Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  Through the BusyKid app I perched stocks. And those stock are gone. The company provided through the app has no records of my purchase of stock. I perched 1 share for each of my dependents of CVX ********* at a price of $110.00 to $115.00. At the current market price $168.96 it would be at a significant gain. Though no one can provide information on what happened to the equitys.

  Business response

  10/21/2022

  ********************,

  I'm very sorry for the trouble and confusion. We would have been more than happy to help you through our customer service team ********************************* but I don't see any attempts to communicate with us. If you were in touch with someone else, please supply me with the name and how you did so I can research why it never made it to us.

  In regards to your complaint, I do see a purchase of $100 made on 9/21/21. This purchase, as well as all stock purchases at the time, we're made through our investment partner Stockpile. The investment only showed up on the BusyKid dashboard. Unless you cancelled your Stockpile account, you should still be able to see and access that investment. The reason you don't see anything in the dashboard is because we ended our relationship with Stockpile earlier this year and sent an email out to all our customers explaining and sharing our plans to have aa new investment feature inside our app (which we just launched this week).

  Again I apologize for the trouble and confusion, but please log into your Stockpile account to view your holdings. If you don't see them or need help with your account, you can reach out to their support team.

  Sincerely,

  ***************************

  President

  BusyKid

• Initial Complaint

  08/02/2022

  Complaint Type:

  Service or Repair Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  We have used Busy Kid for over two years and have only had minor problems. In February I noticed that my daughters account had zero dollars in it. I looked in the activity and found unknown charges. I filed a dispute with Busy Kid/ Cliq and they opened an investigation. I was contacted a few months later and told me that I would be receiving a check for the missing $100. It is now 5 months later and I still haven't received the check. I have contacted them over 15 times inquiring about the check and when or if they respond back they say "they have already mailed the check". I've sent 3 emails asking to verify my address even...with no response.

*Some consumers may elect to not publish the details of their complaints, some complaints may not meet BBB's standards for publication, or BBB may display a portion of complaints when a high volume is received for a particular business. ↩